The team of expert archaeologists who unearthed his bones from the hidden ruins of Greyfriars Church 10 years ago last week and who deftly proved who he was, are this weekend fighting to stop their side of history being buried forever. They fear the “quite reckless” new film, The Lost King, will diminish their role in the extraordinary historical find. A member of the University of Leicester team, Professor Turi King, carried out key DNA studies, providing compelling evidence and spending hours in the laboratory. “I had to start from scratch, both for the historical work and the modern samples from Richard’s living relatives,” said the Canadian-British geneticist. “We’re all so surprised the filmmakers didn’t check with us. I showed the tracker their location and offered to explain, as did the university, but no one picked us up.” Since his death, Richard III’s defenders, known as Ricardians, have argued that he was never the assassin portrayed by his critics, such as Sir Thomas More and Shakespeare. Nor was he the murderer of “the princes in the tower.” Historians have also disagreed over the fate of his missing body: had it been hastily buried after the humiliation of a public parade, or had it been thrown into the nearby River Soar? And even when his skeleton was finally found, the citizens of Leicester and York clashed over where he should be buried. Sally Hawkins as Philippa Langley, the leading ‘Ricardian’ and hero of the film, with Steve Coogan, who wrote the script and plays Langley’s husband. Photograph: Graeme Hunter With The Lost King premiering at the Toronto Film Festival next month, the monarch finds himself once again in contention. A quirky drama, co-written by Steve Coogan, who also stars as the wife of Philippa Langley, the woman behind Richard Plantagenet’s under-the-tarmac search campaign. Langley, played by Sally Hawkins in the film, is a passionate member of the Richard III Society and the woman who convinced the local council and the University of Leicester to start the dig. Everyone agrees it’s the heart of the story, but historians and archaeologists who made the project fear that the film’s acclaimed team, including co-writer Jeff Pope and director Stephen Frears, have set it all up as obstacles, not obstacles. supporters of Langley. They worry that Langley, motivated by the belief that she was cut by the team, told the filmmakers an incomplete version of the story. King, who worked on the dig with renowned archaeologist Richard Buckley, said Langley was inspired but lacked the expertise to lead them. “Everybody brought something to the table, that’s what was so cool about it,” he said. “We tried to keep Philippa involved the whole time. Why not do it? In fact, we bent over backwards.” In addition, Richard Taylor, a former deputy registrar at the University of Leicester, said this weekend that he suspected the film did not pay due respect to the late David Baldwin, one of the first academics to identify the car park as a possible burial site in the mid 1980s. Taylor, who now works at Loughborough University, told the world for the first time that Richard III had been at the famous press conference in February 2013 and is upset that the film bills itself as “the true story”. “We all recognize that it wouldn’t have happened without Philippa’s tireless enthusiasm, but equally it wouldn’t have happened without the university team,” he said. “Tension makes a good story, but it doesn’t necessarily make it true. If you’re going to portray real people, at least involve them. It seems pretty reckless to me.” Taylor is also “frustrated” that his on-screen character, played by Lee Ingleby, represents the academic bureaucracy that Langley felt stood in her way. The trailer for the film shows him mocking her intuition about Richard’s whereabouts. “I’m surprised I’m the villain of the piece. There’s dialogue in there that not only didn’t happen that way, it didn’t happen at all,” he said. “We always included her and gave her number to the press.” Richard’s coffin in Leicester Cathedral before the reburial ceremony in 2015. Photo: Darren Staples/Reuters Speaking to the Guardian last week, Langley said she felt “reduced” by the academics and by the archaeologists on the dig: “I was on the sidelines and marginalized. I was very vulnerable. Because I’m not a doctor. I’m not a professor. But in the end, I came to find my voice.” Langley also claims to have funded much of the early work. That point is disputed by King, who says the university made the first big payment and undertook the excavation survey, so the council got involved. Excavation director Matthew Morris, played in the film by Alasdair Hankinson, said this weekend: “It was always going to be Philippa’s story, but my big concern is how they’re showing us. It’s unfair if it doesn’t show our cooperation with her.” The Lost King, which reunites the creators of the award-winning Philomena, opens in UK cinemas on 7 October and in Australian cinemas on 26 December. Leicester University academics have been invited to a screening in London next week. This weekend the film’s producers said they were “fascinated” to learn of the interest from so many of them related to the story, “Especially because no one has seen the film yet”. They added that: “Quite simply, without the single-minded and unwavering determination of Philippa Langley, an intelligent, dedicated amateur historian, the remains of King Richard III would still be undiscovered.” Ahead of the film’s release, an exhibition at London’s Wallace Collection opens next week. The Lost King, Imagining Richard III
